There has been a little delay in distributing schedules to students because we have decided to go forward with a single teacher Spanish department for next year. This will mean that not all of the students requesting Spanish 1 and Spanish 2 will be able to get those classes. We plan to offer two sections of Spanish 1, two sections of Spanish 2, one section of Spanish 3, and one section of Spanish 4. It also appears we will have about 8 students taking Spanish 5. It is our plan that following next year, we will be able to increase the number of Spanish 1 sections by one or two sections by sharing a middle school teacher who is dual certified. While this is not possible next year, we do believe it will be a good solution in the future. If you have any questions about how this will impact your child’s schedule, especially the 20 or so freshmen who will not be able to get Spanish 1 next year, please feel free to give me a call at 564-2346 x1001.

We are very pleased to have about 80 students taking the classroom portion of Driver Education, and about 100 students taking Summer Fitness. The summer fitness class will meet in two sections—at 7:00-9:00 am section and a 9:00-11:00 am section. The early session is primarily HS aged students and the later section is more MS focused. The exception is that any student taking Driver Education needs to take the early fitness session to avoid that conflict. Driver Education will meet from 9:00-11:00 am for both the early and late summer sections. (Please note the time change for Driver Education, originally it was an 8:00 am start time.) Driver Education meets in the HS multi-ed. room (auditorium.)

One suggestion the HS faculty and I would make for all of our students is we would encourage students to read during the summer. We would really appreciate it as well if parents would encourage their high school children to read, maybe to the point of structuring some time to do so each day. That may strike you as a strange suggestion, and one that you would expect only for elementary aged students, but the truth is that to a significant degree the gaps in achievement are highly affected by summer reading. Many of our best students are avid readers and they continue this habit in the summer. They maintain their reading comprehension skills because they are actively practicing when they are not in school. For students who don’t make reading a priority in the summer, the gaps in achievement tend to persist or even widen. Of course, we also see a strong connection between student’s reading levels and their writing skills. Reading comprehension is such a central skill for students in virtually every class, and the simple fact is that the more students read the more that skill set improves. Consistent reading in the summer allows students to maintain or build reading skills, and that will have considerable pay off in their learning going forward. Please consider having your HS student read for 30+ minutes per day this summer. It would go a long way to improving their skills as a student.

School District of Oostburg

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